Hong Kong Student Activist Joshua Wong Barred From Malaysia

Joshua Wong, the teenage face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy student movement, was refused entry to Malaysia where he was scheduled to attend a series of forums relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Mr. Wong, 18 years old , said in statements posted to his social-media accounts on Tuesday that he was banned from leaving Malaysia’s Penang airport upon arrival because of a “government order,” he cited an immigration official as saying. He was put on a Dragon Air flight back to Hong Kong the same day.

The convener of student protest group Scholarism was due to speak at a series of events organized by a group known as the “Malaysian Working Group on the 26th Anniversary of June 4,” made up of various Malaysian groups such as Perak Civic Group and the Penang Chinese Media Journalist and Photographers Association. Mr. Wong was invited to speak at events in Penang, Ipoh, Johor, Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur between May 27 and June 4, according to an itinerary posted on Facebook.

Malaysia deported Mr. Wong according to standard procedures as he was on the list of people barred from entering the country, Mustafa Ibrahim, director-general of the Immigration Department of Malaysia, said in a statement.

Firebrand Hong Kong legislator Leung Kwok-hung, known as Long Hair, is due to speak at an event in Kuala Lumpur on Friday on China’s democratic development form 1989 to the Occupy protests. Mr. Wong was also scheduled to address the event.

During last year’s Occupy protests, which lasted from September to December, some activists and reporters were banned from entering mainland China. In the most memorable incident, members of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which represents university students, were stopped from boarding a flight from Hong Kong airport to Beijing, where they planned to take their protest.